Thursday, January 06, 2011

Will removing White Poplars Reduce Local Respiratory Irritation?

Each year at around October in Canberra I experience watering itchy eyes, sneezes and blocked sinuses. This year it was particularly severe. Canberra is planted with White poplar (Populus alba), which is classified as a Noxious Weed (propagation and supply is prohibited in the Australian Capital Territory under the Pest Plants and Animals Act) and produces wind borne fluff around October, causing respiratory irritation. The ACT Government and bodies such as the ANU have plans to replace these trees with less irritating ones, as the current trees grow old. But this will take several decades.

Replacing all the tress earlier would be an expensive process. However, it might be of value replacing the trees in areas where people are frequently out of doors, such as around unviersity and schools campuses. But the fluff is wind borne and so it is not clear if removing trees in a limited area would provide any significant relief.

Senator Lundy, suggested using a geo-mashup, to see if there is a correlation between irritation and location. If there is a correlation, that would indicate the effect is localised and so worth removing trees in small areas.

Description

Each year at around October, some Canberra residents experience watering itchy eyes, sneezes and blocked sinuses. Canberra is planted with White poplar (Populus alba), which is classified as a Noxious Weed and produces wind borne fluff around October, causing respiratory irritation. The ACT Government and bodies such as the ANU have plans to replace these trees with less irritating ones, as the current trees grow old. But this will take several decades.

Replacing all the tress earlier would be an expensive process. However, it might be of value replacing the trees in areas where people are frequently out of doors, such as around university and schools campuses. But the fluff is wind borne and so it is not clear if removing trees in a limited area would provide any significant relief.

Senator Lundy, suggested using a geo-mashup, to see if there is a correlation between irritation and location. If there is a correlation, that would indicate the effect is localised and so worth removing trees in small areas.

John Snow famously identified the source of the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak by talking to residents and later mapped the relationship between location and cases. Google Flu Trends uses queries to Google searches to track flu outbreaks. This project is to use similar techniques to map respiratory irritation in Canberra and see if it relates to the location of White poplar trees.